Pursuing CSI justice for European citizens.

The European Court of Justice has ruled the UK’s requirement for Comprehensive Sickness Insurance (CSI) unlawful.

We are now reaching out to seek justice for people affected by this requirement throughout the years. We are looking to support people in exploring options and seeking restitution for the injustice they have suffered.

Comprehensive Sickness Insurance was wrongly required in the UK. EU Free Movement law states people can move to other EU member states to live, work and study. If they are studying or self-sufficient, they need CSI to not be a burden on a country’s healthcare system.

The European Court of Justice judgment, however, sets out that the UK should have accepted that access to the National Health Service is in itself sufficient to meet the requirement for CSI.

the3million/CSI Justice

This requirement affected students, self-sufficient parents with caring responsibilities, people with punctuated work histories and family members of EU citizens. We are looking to organise and together with a network of lawyers, campaigners and others in solidarity, seek justice.

If you have been personally affected by a lack of CSI, or if you have worked with people who have been affected by it, please do get in touch.

Government locks EU citizens out of Government Gateway online accounts.

We have seen numerous reports from EU citizens unable to fill out tax returns or use other services such as checking pensions due to HMRC changing the system through which people prove their identity.

We have written to HMRC highlighting the problem for people who now cannot log in through the Government Gateway, and asking for alternative options to be put in place.

Thank you to everyone who shared their problems in accessing their Government Gateway or benefits account following changes to identity checks.

Upgrading from pre-settled to settled status

We strongly encourage everyone with pre-settled status to apply for settled status, as soon as they are eligible.

We have seen that applications are taking a long time to process, with more than 300,000 applications waiting in the backlog. Securing settled status as soon as possible will offer EU citizens peace of mind.

Do you know if your family and friends are aware of the facts about pre-settled status?

• pre-settled status expires 5 years after it was granted
• you will lose pre-settled status if you are out of the UK for 2 consecutive years
• if you spend over 6 months abroad in any 12 month period, you may lose your ability to change your pre-settled to settled status (there are some exceptions)
• a prison sentence of any length will lose your ability to change your status to settled

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Going Further:

• UK wrongly insisted on Comprehensive Sickness Insurance for years, EU court finds | Free Movement
• CSI Justice campaign

Sources

• Text: This piece was originally published in the3million newsletter and re-published in PMP Magazine on 8 May 2022, with the author’s consent. | The author writes in a personal capacity.
• Cover: Flickr/Gwenael Piaser. - European Court of Justice. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)